


The Call of the Void

by Azeran



Series: Camp Camp [5]
Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Gen, Gwen-centric, Gwenvid if you squint - Freeform, The Void
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:00:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23636443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azeran/pseuds/Azeran
Summary: She couldn’t move. Something about the trees, still damp from an earlier rainstorm, unsettled her. And Gwen couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to get her.
Series: Camp Camp [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1395955
Kudos: 14





	The Call of the Void

**Author's Note:**

> Experienced something like this just recently. Was out taking a drive to combat the madness of quarantine late at night, and all of a sudden a horrifying feeling of worry settled itself inside my chest. It felt like the trees were closing in, and the darkness outside was alive, waiting for me. Spooky shit! So, I decided to write it down. Gwen’s already got anxiety. Who’s to say she wouldn’t experience something like this too?
> 
> Anyone else ever felt this way? Comment and tell me if you have!

Gwen wasn’t claustrophobic. And she wasn’t agoraphobic either. She’d crawled through enough tight spaces to know that being boxed in didn’t bother her, and while she preferred staying inside, she was pretty comfortable outdoors. Her job practically required it. Which made her current predicament so much…. _ stranger.  _

She was outside, standing in the middle of a grove of trees. Pure, open space, nothing claustrophobic about it at all. But Gwen couldn’t MOVE. Something about the trees, still damp from an earlier rainstorm, unsettled her. As did the darkness that was seeping in between their craggy trunks, and crawling over the ground to mingle with the mist that hovered like cold, damp clouds near the forest floor. 

It was...it was foreboding. It was  _ sickening.  _ And Gwen couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going to get her. Was it the darkness? The mist? The  _ trees?  _ Fuck, she didn’t know! But it was there. Waiting, lurking..

Gwen shivered, staring out into the black night. It seemed to stare back at her, and the faint prickle of rain drops on leaves suddenly intensified. She clenched her fists by her side, trying to focus on something,  _ anything  _ to take her mind off the horrifying sensation welling up inside her. 

It didn’t work. The grove might as well have been a black hole, because her security and rationale were getting sucked away, leaving only the creeping dread in their wake. Gwen sucked in a painful, shaky breath, her lavender eyes blown wide as she weakly tried to force her body to take a step forward. But she didn’t budge. The damp grass and earth just sucked her down more, cool sludgy mud eating at her heels. 

Oh god.  _ Oh god _ . Why was this happening? And why now? Okay, maybe she’d been feeling a little weird when she left the cabin to get some fresh air, but she’d chalked that up to general exhaustion after a long day of work! This, whatever  _ this  _ was, shouldn’t be a thing! She didn’t have any phobias! Nothing about this stupid patch of dirt and trees should be scary to her!

But it was. It really,  _ really was.  _

“Fuck. Fuckfuckfuck fuck FUCK,” Gwen whispered, wrapping her arms around herself. How long had she been standing here? How much time had passed? Everything seemed to be at a damn standstill, so she couldn’t tell if it was still early, or late, or something in between. It only made the suffocating awareness stronger. Something was out there. She couldn’t see it, but it saw her. The void clung to her like the mud on her boots, pulling her down,  _ down, doooown… _

A twig snapped behind her, loud as thunder. 

“Gwen? There you are! I’ve been looking everywhere for you! When you didn’t come back to the cabin, I thought maybe you fell, or got lost.” Milky fingers gently closed around her forearm, red hair and green eyes suddenly flooding her line of sight. “What on earth are you doing out here? Are you ok?”

“....No.” Gwen forced herself to grind the response out. Fuck, David was here. David she knew. He was safe. So why did it still feel like she was going to be eaten alive by the darkness? Why wouldn’t this stupid fear fuck off back to who knows where?? “David, the trees—are they breathing?”

“Wh-what? Of course not. Trees don’t breathe, Gwen. Not like we do.” David’s concerned face leaned in closer, his warm fingers pressing down on the fluttery pulse her skin could barely conceal. “You look pale. And your heart rate is...oh gosh, it’s really high! We should get you back to camp, check you out.”

“Cool. Good luck. I can’t move,” Gwen muttered, repeating herself in a shaky voice when David looked confused. “My feet, they feel like they’re stuck. And my legs won’t work. I tried.”

“Your legs? Gwen, I don’t..” David cut himself off with a grimace, his grip on her wrist tightening just a few notches short of being painful. But she didn’t mind. It grounded her better than walking ever could. 

Gwen immediately gulped in a raspy lungful of air, tasting the bitter salt of panic on her tongue. “Help— _ me. David.  _ I need to get out of here. It’s bad. Fucking BAD.”

“I can see that. Gwen, I think—I think you’re having an anxiety attack.” Leaving his fingertips pressed to her flesh, David started lightly tapping her pulse point. One, two, three.  _ One two three.  _ Repetitive sequences, over and over and over again. Gwen hyper-fixated on the action, letting it quell some of the panic and fear overwhelming her. “Is this helping? Gwen? Do you feel any better?”

Yes. No. “I don’t know. Maybe.” Gwen reached out to him and put her hand on his shoulder, then the other, until her shaky body was fully pressed against the lanky redhead, her arms wrapping around his neck. “David, I need to get out of here. Please. Fucking c-carry me if you have to. Just get me OUT.”

“I will! I promise. But Gwen, first you need to regulate your breathing for me. Otherwise you’re going to hurt yourself.” David held her close and pressed her forehead against the curve of his neck. “Listen to my heartbeat. Okay? It’ll help.”

Dragging in another bone rattling breath, Gwen clung to her co-counselor and focused on the steady drumming she could hear inside his chest. Her grip on him had to be painful. She could feel her nails eating into his freckled skin through the damp fabric of his shirt. But David never complained. He held on tight, his palms rubbing up and down the taut line of her spine. It was soothing, and it helped, slowly but surely. 

Inch by inch Gwen felt herself grow lax beneath his touch, the darkness bleeding away from the corners of her vision. It still resonated around her in a cacophony of monstrous noise and leeching cold, but she could push it out of the forefront of her mind now. She had David. He wouldn’t let the void get her. 

“I want to go home,” Gwen moaned, her voice pathetically weak compared to the vast sound of the forest. “Take me back to camp.”

“Okay. Okay...we’re going home.” David took his hands off her, and the chill immediately started licking at her flesh, threatening to pull her back into its waiting embrace. As quickly as it set in though, it was banished again, because David carefully locked his arm under her knees and arms, scooping her up as if she weighed no more than a feather. “You’re gonna be fine. I won’t let anything hurt you. I’m here…”

“Y-yeah….you’re here.” Swallowing a whimper, Gwen closed her eyes and focused on David’s soft voice, the crackling sound of his feet disturbing pine needles as he carried her out of the grove. Nothing else. She couldn’t let herself think about the cold, or the dark, or the rain. Just...David. Safety. And how easily the two blurred together. 


End file.
